Fabio in 1993: An interview with Michael Small
Show Notes
Sawyer interviews former People Magazine reporter Michael Small about the two(ish) weeks he spent with romance cover model Fabio Lanzoni in 1993.
Michael is also the host of the podcast I Couldn’t Throw it Out. Listen to his episode, My Fun, Strange Adventures with Fabio, featuring Sarah Wendell of Smart Bitches, Trashy Podcast.
Read Michael’s 1993 People Magazine cover story on Fabio: Love for Sale
Michael’s Musical: The History of Light
Sawyer’s previous Reformed Rakes Fabio episodes: Fabio: Part One and Fabio: Part Two
Transcript
Sawyer
Welcome to Reformed Rakes, a historical romance podcast that's stuck in the '90s. My name is Sawyer, and I'm the writer of the romance newsletter The Loose Cravat. Today I have the pleasure of speaking with Michael Small, who hosts the podcast I Couldn't Throw It Out. Michael is a former People magazine reporter, and on the podcast, he and guests revisit celebrity interviews and the memorabilia he saved over the years. The podcast is incredible, and he has episodes on Kiefer Sutherland, Nicolas Cage, Tupac, And many more. So a few months ago, Michael had Sarah Wendell from Smart Bitches Trashy Podcast on to talk about his nearly 2 weeks with Fabio in 1993. Not only did Michael write the famous 1993 People magazine cover story on Fabio, but he also ghostwrote the Fabio biography. Everyone should listen to that episode, which I'll link in the show notes. It's great to hear Michael's perspective on Fabio as his fame is kind of kicking off into overdrive. And it's also incredible to hear audio from Fabio's now infamous manager, Peter Paul. Fabio is, of course, my special interest, so after listening to his podcast, I wanted to see if Michael would speak with me about his time with the quote-unquote spokesman for love and romance.
Welcome, Michael. Thank you so much.
Michael
Oh, thank you. I'm so glad to be here. It's always really fun to think about Fabio and my times with him.
Sawyer
Yeah, it's— did you know much about him before you were pitched by Peter Paul to do this cover story?
Michael
The only thing I knew was that a— I think a pre`ss kit was sent to People magazine, and everyone was laughing about it. And they said, well, we've got to check this out, because if the numbers check out, you know, it is a big story. And the numbers— some of them, not all of them— some of the numbers did check out. And then, you know, I had my meeting with Peter Paul where he won me over because the guy— He's a great guy. whatever else may be said about him, was just an absolute marketing genius. And he saw potential in Fabio, and he knew how to market to anyone. And I thought that I was going in there feeling like, I'm not going to be sold on this. And he found a way.
Sawyer
Yeah. So I definitely want to talk to you more about your first impressions of Peter Paul. But before I kind of get to that, can you tell me a bit about your writing Like, how did you come to start writing for people?
Michael
Well, I— when I was graduating from college, I really did not want to leave college, and I did not know what to do, and I'd never thought of anything except how much I loved going to college. Unlike some people, I loved every— well, at least for the last 3 years, I loved every second of it, and I did not want to leave. And I went to a counseling center to ask them what I should do, and The person asked me a bunch of questions, and then she said, one word for you: publishing. So I went into book publishing for a year, and it was a really kind of wild experience and really eye-opening. And I was so, so protected. I did not know how to write a check. And, you know, I messed up a lot of things with authors, and I did a lot of things that were not really kosher. I actually did a podcast episode about how I tricked my boss, who was a great guy and later became a big, a very famous writer. His name's Joseph Cannon, and he writes all these spy thrillers. And he was a wonderful boss, but I tricked him a lot.
And while there, I realized I was really jealous of the writers. I didn't want to be putting out other people's books. So I was applying all kinds of places, and I got in for an interview at People Magazine. So I'm one year out of college. Clearly, the woman who was interviewing me did not want to do it. She was being talked into it because one of the high-up editors at People was an author at the book publishing house where I was at. So I was very underhanded about the whole thing. And he told her she had to talk to me. So there was all this, you know, his publishing house, he was trying to be on good terms with them. So he gets secretly, without telling my boss, I go for this interview. And it was to be a fact-checker because People Magazine, believe it or not, had intense fact-checking, every single word. And sometimes as a fact-checker, we would drive the writers crazy because we really insisted on all this source material. And it was a very intense process, the same that it came from Time Magazine. Because People Magazine was an offshoot of Time Magazine.
So I went in to interview with the head of fact-checking, and she said from the start, there are no jobs here. So I tried to keep talking, and at the end, I looked over and she had these hanging plants that were really not in great shape. They were very leggy. So gardening is one of my big thing. So I said to her, would you mind if I saved your plants? She's like, really? What are you going to do? So I said, just give me scissors. And I made cuttings from all her plants and I cut them back. And when I was done, she said, can you start Monday?
Sawyer
It was because of the plants?
Michael
Yeah. Yeah. Because I pruned her plants. I mean, I just— she was like, I don't know what this guy's up to, but I'm going to give him a job.
Sawyer
That's awesome. And how were your first assignments? Did you find that kind of difficult to just jump right in?
Michael
Well, I was volunteering for everything. And, you know, some people get a little jaded. At People, there was a lot of enthusiasm, and there were just fantastic people working there. I mean, just the best group of people, so much fun. And one thing about all those people, they were very high-low. Like, they could literally quote from Caesar's diaries in Latin and then talk about how Britney Spears got started or whatever. You know, they were just— they had such broad range and they were delightful people. And but I was the eager beaver. So every time they would say, can, you know, nobody wants to cover this, would somebody please cover it? I'd be like, yes. So I had no idea what I was doing. Didn't go to journalism school. I'd studied the history and literature of France and England from 1750 to, well, when I graduated in 1979, I guess, is when it stopped. So I used that background and I could go in to interview celebrities. I didn't know who any of them were. I mean, I recognized a few people because of— from my limited knowledge, but I— one of the first things I did is I ended up at the opening party for the movie Tootsie.
I don't know if you've ever heard of it. Dustin Hoffman was in it. Yes, I have. And he pretends to be a woman in order to get acting roles.
Sawyer
There's this famous clip of him crying about him not feeling very attractive as a woman when he—
Michael
Yes.
Sawyer
Yeah.
Michael
So I go in there, and it turns out to be the most— I did a podcast episode about this too. It was the most celebrities I ever saw in one room, and it was my first assignment. Everybody was a celebrity except me. Everybody was famous in that room. And my question was, how do you think this movie reflects the role of women in society today? Not the right question.
Sawyer
It didn't go over well?
Michael
I had a big run-in with Bill Murray, and that's a whole other story. But anyway, I kept going to things, and I just learned by doing it wrong. And I would talk too much when I interviewed people. The first full interview I did, I think, was Birnbach for The Preppy Handbook. Do you remember The Preppy Handbook? Did you ever hear of it? It was a—
Sawyer
I don't think I know that.
Michael
Prep school fashions were coming in in the early '80s, and Lisa Birnbach wrote a semi-satirical book called The Preppy Handbook about how to look and act like a preppy. And so, because I was just out of college, I got that assignment. And then after that, Bryn Thayer and Jerry Anthony were stars of One Life to Live. I'd never watched a soap opera in my life, and they were getting married. And so I interviewed them. And, you know, I just would— I had no focus when I went in to do a story. So I would ask every single question, like, you know, like, what do you eat for lunch? Well, why do you like carrots? It had nothing to do with anything that was going to go in People magazine, but I learned from messing up.
Sawyer
That's so interesting because I've interviewed a few people, but I find that it's not a skill that I naturally have. So I was very nervous to interview you, a professional interviewer. But also, yeah, those mistakes that I can remember from times past where I interrupted or I said something asinine, like, they haunt me. So I imagine you have to be really tough and able to bounce back and resilient to, to kind of be in this line of work.
Michael
I mean, you know, do you know who Danny Kaye is? Have you ever heard of him? He was the star. I recognized him at that party because he was the star of, oh, Everything Is Tickety-Boo, a Hans Christian Andersen movie called Hans Christian Andersen. He played Hans Christian Andersen, and he sang a song. Happy, happy song. Everything is tickety-boo. How about you? And I thought, well, I'll go to him because I recognize him from this childhood movie, right? And I go up to him and I say, I'm here from People Magazine. He goes, People Magazine? And I'm like, yeah, People Magazine. He goes, People Magazine? Man, I'm feeling kind of good, right? So I'm like, yeah, People Magazine. He goes, People Magazine, a fucking piece of shit.
Sawyer
No!
Michael
And that was like my hero from this child movie. Everything is tickety-boo. Anyway, so I got over it.
Sawyer
Yeah, well, that kind of gets me into my next question, because Fabio said that his father finally acknowledged that he had like made it in the business when he got the People magazine cover and your profile. And so I was kind of thinking about this because we don't live in a monoculture like we used to. Like, obviously People magazine is still a really big deal, but I think maybe younger listeners might really not understand the significance of being on the cover of People in so how would you explain to someone who didn't understand, like, why that would be such a coup for Fabio and Peter Paul?
Michael
That is such a good point to make because the magazine's still out there and young people see it differently from the way it was seen. Well, first of all, now People Magazine is, I think, pretty much all celebrity-oriented. But back then, it was covering our entire culture. And you would not believe the kinds of things they let me cover because I was always wanting to cover things sort of on the edge. So I covered the arts. And, like, Karen Finley was a performance artist who used to— can I use any language on this podcast?
Sawyer
Yes.
Michael
She used to stuff yams in her vagina as part of her performance art. And so she was pretty extreme. And I did a story about her and Jenny Holzer, who was putting messages through the signs on Times Square.
Sawyer
Mm-hmm.
Michael
And some very, you know, Oldenburg and Rauschenberg and all these artists, and then theater people who were not mainstream. And so that became my beat to cover the things that nobody else wanted to cover because back then, they wouldn't have let me do You know, whatever the big show was, Dallas. Like, there's no way I could have done that because the real seasoned, talented reporters got to do that. And I just— they just let me do these offbeat things, and I had so much fun doing it. And I also had a group of friends there who would cheer you on and help you, and it was just wonderful. But anyway, so it was covering all of— society, every angle. There were crime stories. There were really some highbrow author stories. And so it was broader coverage. But I think— I may have the numbers wrong, but somebody from People obviously could correct me. And just, this is the general idea.
Sawyer
Mm-hmm.
Michael
I think each— there were 3 million copies of it sold, but each copy was seen by 10 people. The ratio of people who saw it, and people would grab it out of each other's hands. And when you went to a doctor's office, it was always there and falling apart because it had been read to shreds. People just, you know, this is pre-internet, so how did you get all this information? And there was gossip mixed with sad stories and funny stories and— It was certainly not seen as highbrow, but in a way, the people I knew there were certainly incredibly well-educated. And I want to give credit where credit is due. When I reread that story, I don't think that I could— there were a lot of turns of phrase that were much better than I could ever do. So I had an editor for that Fabio story who made it much better than what I turned in. Much better. So, he— they deserve credit for that. They always did that. They always made my stories better. And I got towards the end, I was doing a little bit, you know, I was improving, but I sometimes wonder why they kept me on.
But I had a kind of enthusiasm, like there was a really wonderful editor, Dick Lemon, who I worked for. I was his deputy editor. And we would go into meetings once a week, and I would literally come in with 25 ideas, and 15 of them would get assigned because I just loved being there. It was sort of— it was like college. I loved being there. And I had so many ideas that maybe that's why they kept me on. I don't know why else.
Sawyer
Well, I mean, it's a great story. And I've read more of your work. I've read also the biography. Like, you obviously can spin a tale. I guess getting to your episode of I Couldn't Throw It Out, it starts with you meeting Peter Paul, who was Fabio's manager in the early to mid-'90s, and I think probably the biggest catalyst of his mainstream success. And I think that you might agree with that. When I was researching Fabio a few years ago, I kept coming across his name, and even like really small newspaper bits he would be mentioned, and a lot of times he would be called like Fabio's Svengali, and that kind of piqued my interest. And so you also spoke to Sarah about how you found Peter Paul fascinating from the jump. What was it about him that was kind of giving everybody this immediate impression that he was a notable figure?
Michael
Well, right away I noticed on his wall that he had pictures of Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter, the Reagans, Nixon. Like, what the— Fabio's Svengali has pictures of himself with those people? So I very early on asked him about that, and he told me that he had been head of the American Spirit Foundation, which I think was for the bicentennial of the Constitution, but it was in LA, not Washington. So he made all these LA contacts, and he started listing the things like, He had a project where he sent It's a Wonderful Life. When Soviet Union became Russia and everything opened up again, he had It's a Wonderful Life— he befriended Jimmy Stewart, and with Jimmy Stewart's support, he had It's a Wonderful Life dubbed into Polish and Russian. And he contacted the Minister of Communications in Poland and Apparently, according to him, it was in the Wall Street Journal too. The first American broadcast was It's a Wonderful Life dubbed. So he certainly— I just was like, this guy, this guy has— and now he's with Fabio? You know, he told me about his past grudgingly because he wanted to keep everything about Fabio. And if you notice in the article, he's not mentioned much.
And the truth is that for a People magazine article, he wasn't as interesting as he was to me, right? But he told me he studied philosophy for 2 years at Dartmouth, and then he went to the London School of Economics. Now, I didn't have the internet then, so I couldn't contact these places and say, did he really study there for 2 years? But this is what he told me. Then he got a law degree from the University of Miami. And I don't know whether we want to save it for later, but he then did some pretty crazy things. And you have to ask, how did he go from the crazy things to then being head of the American Spirit Foundation and to then having a whole run-in with Hillary Clinton and probably or possibly coining the term Crooked Hillary?
Sawyer
Oh, yeah.
Michael
And the guy, he just shows up with a different personality, a different persona. And people consistently, again and again, took him in and wanted to befriend him. Because you know what? I enjoyed his company a lot. I did. He figured me out, and he knew how to make me have a good time. And He totally— I totally enjoyed his company. I know he's done all these crazy things, but the truth is I enjoyed him. And I will also say, jumping ahead a little bit, but when I wrote the book for him, after the article was done, he asked me to write the book. I was something called permanent freelance at that time for People because I had chosen to move to San Francisco where there wasn't a permanent job. And so I was permanent freelance. That meant I could do what I wanted. And he paid me $10,000, which would be like $23,000 today, to write that Fabio's— what is it, 68-page or 80-page biography? He paid me on time. He was easy to work with. And he just— it was the most lucrative and easiest job I ever had. So You know, he lived up to his word.
Like, unlike some other people in our culture today who hire people and then don't pay them and then sue them, he was not that way at all. He lived up to everything with me, and we ended up on a really nice note.
Sawyer
I feel like someone like him who has lived all of these wild lives, like, you have to be extremely personable, right, in order to And then also, sometimes it's really sincere and genuine, and then sometimes you're Cuba, and he's trying to—
Michael
Yeah.
Sawyer
I guess for listeners, what we were alluding to earlier is that in the '70s, Peter Paul tried to defraud the Cuban government by selling them nonexistent coffee beans. And so he got charged with that and also cocaine possession. So that was the felony that was on his record. And then I don't really have a question point about this. So then we can also talk about his time after Fabio as well.
Michael
Well, so, I mean, what's also interesting is that to defraud Cuba, he was supposed to be sending a ship over with coffee beans in it, and he was supposed to sink— then the ship was supposed to be sunk. But the people running the ship pulled into a port, and it was figured out before the ship was sunk. And that's how they got caught. So, you know, it was a crazy— it was called the Cuban Coffee Caper.
Sawyer
Uh-huh.
Michael
And he says that he was head of the World Trade Center in Miami around that time.
Sawyer
Yeah.
Michael
Again, whether— I think that is probably true. But he definitely was, you know, doing a lot of things on the side, like that— all that cocaine in his garage, which at one point, I think he said at one point that he was going to use that as— that was the money. Like, he wasn't— that was how they were funding this. It was related somehow to the Cuban Coffee Caper. But the crazy thing is, so this happens. He goes to prison. He then comes out on parole, and he tries to go to Canada using the name of a dead person, and he gets caught again. How does he end up just a few years later running a foundation for the bicentennial in LA?
Sawyer
I think what he does is he's got These pictures with these famous people. Like, he can, he can use them. You're— it's pre-internet. He can kind of— he has these credentials. Maybe people aren't maybe able to know that he has a felony or that he, he tried to defraud Cuba in the funniest way possible, perhaps. But, but yeah, his reinvention as a celebrity manager, I found that incredibly interesting.
Michael
Yeah.
Sawyer
And Fabio particularly, I think like the more that I learned about Fabio, because Fabio considers himself a businessman, so I can see why they would have a sort of connection on that level. And they also kind of think they're both hustlers, so I can see why they would kind of hit it off.
Michael
I think the common thread for all of this, because I was trying to figure it out, and one of the great things about you asking me to be to talk about this, and also when I go back to these things for my own podcast, is that I have more time to think about it. Because when it's happening, I don't know, they were throwing all these names at me of people they were involved with, and I didn't really look up any of them and didn't know who they were. But I since found out a little bit more about that too. But I think that the common thread is one word: money.
And that he maybe had a less directed moral compass than the rest of us, and that money was what he was going after. And he saw dollar signs when he saw Fabio.
Sawyer
And you mentioned on your podcast episode that you— it seemed like Peter had researched you before.
Michael
Yeah, well, I had just written a book about rap music, because that was another reason why I loved People magazine, was I could just— it was, you know, rap music one day and, you know, Broadway the next and opera the next, you know, and ballet the next. And so I'd written a book about rap music, and he, in my first meeting with him, compared romance novels to rap music. Can't have happened often.
Sawyer
I have the quote. Can I read the quote?
Michael
Sure.
Sawyer
Okay. So this is what he said, and you should listen to Michael's episode because hearing him is a different experience. He said, the romance industry is to publishing as rap music is to music, that anybody can express themselves as an author in romance. It's a grassroots kind of activity that women have done on their own without formal training, just like rap music is a grassroots expression in music of attitudes by people who aren't professionally trained in music. I think, yeah, I think that's such a strange stretch, but it's like, it's kind of in a way that it's kind of— I feel like maybe if he was saying that to me in a conversation where I had heard the lead-up, maybe it wouldn't be as weird. But like, just out of— in this context, it seems like so— Because the women, the romance authors, the women romance authors have not had formal training, but like, what genre fiction author has formal training? Like, what?
Michael
Yeah. Yeah. So he had my number, and he also— there were other things about me that he knew or figured out quickly and connected with me on. So he figured out my religion, and I'm Jewish, and there was a lot of Yiddish Okay. So, which I found funny, you know, but I think, like, you know, just going on to other things that he did, he then, you know, he was running a celebrity fundraiser for Hillary Clinton in 2000. So this is 7 years after he was with me. And Cher, a big deal. Cher and Patti LaBelle were performing. Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt buy a table. It's $25,000 a table. And then, from what I understand, Hillary finds out about the Cuban Cofee Caper.
Sawyer
Mm-hmm.
Michael
And perhaps— I wouldn't say that necessarily she cut things off in a good way. You know, she could have been gentle about it. I don't know if she was gentle, but she started to act like, I think, like she never even met him.
Sawyer
Mm-hmm.
Michael
And this did not go down well with him. And then he spent like 7 years with lawsuits against her, and none of the suits were upheld. There was something about the money that had to be addressed, the money that— the donations that had to be addressed. But, you know, that's— it wasn't a big thing, and it was resolved easily. But he was really active in the anti-Hillary thing. And, you know, as a young man, he had been progressive. But just the fact that he got in there and was at such a high level with her, and then she drops him, and then he's like, not going to let it go.
Sawyer
Yeah, I think from what I remember, this was after he did securities fraud?
Michael
No, this is before the securities fraud.
Sawyer
It is before. Okay.
Michael
But the timing's a little difficult because that was 2000. In 1998, he created Stan Lee Media to market Marvel characters. So that's before the Hillary party. He creates this with his friend Stan Lee. So Stan Lee, was head of Marvel Comics. I met Stan Lee several times. I didn't understand why Stan Lee was a big part of Fabio's story, but I'd be like, oh, here's Stan Lee.
Sawyer
Mm-hmm.
Michael
Wait, what was— there was some movie that we saw where it's like, oh, what a coincidence, Stan Lee is here. And they definitely wanted me to mention Stan Lee. He had things he wanted me to mention in People magazine, many of which I did mention. There was a club he was somehow affiliated with, Club Tattoo.
Sawyer
Mm-hmm.
Michael
So I think I ended up mentioning it. There was a party that I had an invitation to that— at Club Tattoo. And the list of celebrities on this, but including Stan Lee, celebrities who were like friends, they're listed as friends of Fabio, including Debbie Allen, Ernest Borgnine, Downtown Julie Brown, Rodney Dangerfield, Jose Hebert, or however it's pronounced, Lisa Gibbons, then Michelle Phillips of the Mamas and the Papas, Joan Rivers, Dick Van Patten, Roger Williams, who I think was Trailer for Sale or Rent, right? Or am I mixed up? Anyway, and it was Sally Jesse Raphael and the movie producer Freddie Fields who hosted the party.
Sawyer
Mm-hmm.
Michael
And anyway, Stan Lee was there. And so, uh, So he ultimately, after the Fabio thing ended, got more involved with Stan Lee. But that was— then he did— the court records say he manipulated the stock to raise the price of Stan Lee Media. And then he went to Brazil. He said he was there for business, but he ultimately was brought back. And then he was on house arrest for a long time. And then he went to prison. So that couldn't have been— it must have happened after the Hillary stuff because he couldn't have done that big party if he was, you know, in Brazil.
Sawyer
Yeah, yeah. I think it was like for her— it was for her senatorial campaign, right? Like she was—
Michael
In 2000, I'm not sure. Yeah, that must have been senatorial, right? Because Yeah. It would be much later, the presidential.
Sawyer
Yeah, yeah. I think if I'm remembering correctly, I think that's what it was for. Yeah, certainly a life. So let's go to your— so you spent almost 2 weeks with Fabio?
Michael
Yeah, you know, I looked more closely and it was 2 weeks, but it was more like 3 or 4 days in each of those weeks. So it really probably added up to 1 week, but it was 2 separate weeks that I did it. And the first part was in LA, and he could not get rid of me. We did everything. We lifted weights together. And I went through my notes earlier this morning, and I found, for anyone who's interested, Fabio believes that if you exercise 1.5 hours for 4 times a week, this is what you need to do. That's what he did. And you do need weightlifting, he said, to get your body in shape. He did 15 reps on the Nautilus. I saw this. 15 reps on the Nautilus with 180 pounds, 15 reps with 200p pounds, 15 reps with 220 pounds, and 10 reps with 240 pounds. I did 10 reps with 60 pounds. And then I was ready to [unclear]
Sawyer
That's better than I could do.
Michael
So, you know, that's what— I'm telling you this partly so you see the kind of detail. There's so much I didn't even mention on my podcast because I kept every note. Every time I had a thought about Fabio, I wrote it down. And I have all these scribbled notes that, you know, some of it is difficult to read, would be difficult to read for anybody but me. But for instance, I did find that it's more information that we went to The Source restaurant on Sunset, 1801 Sunset Boulevard. It's now a different restaurant, but he would have 5 egg white omelets for breakfast. And this is a restaurant where John Lennon, Marlon Brando, Goldie Hawn, and Warren Beatty all liked to go back in the day.
Sawyer
Mm-hmm.
Michael
Uh, it was a health food restaurant. So we did that. We— I also rode around a lot in a limo with Peter Paul, and Fabio, and they would be joking around with each other. And I saw this in my notes, whether— I hope I got it right, but it was Fabio going, hey, Peter, we're so close. People think we're gay, but you're not my type. Hahaha.
Sawyer
So wait, is Fabio the one who started the gay rumors about himself? That's what I'm hearing.
Michael
I would put those rumors right to an end because unless they were just absolutely brilliant at staging these things, as you saw or heard maybe on my podcast, every day at 5, he would have to go take a rest. And that kind of rest was, I think, usually involved a partner because I saw like these little high-heeled clog— woman's clog shoes under his bed. And I actually noticed in my notes, I also saw a black patent leather woman's handbag somewhere in his house. So I don't think that— yeah, I think that was pretty clear. And also when we were in Maui together, when he was filming, he was posing for his calendar. I camped outside his door of his hotel room and saw a woman in a sparkly outfit carrying like some kind of alcoholic beverage in a big bottle knock on his door, and she did enter that room. So maybe they just went and had a chat.
Sawyer
It's possible. But so you were the one who kind of broke his The only time that I think I've read him talking about a specific woman is that one woman, that model that he was with for 4 years, and then he cheated on her and he was very sad about it. And you had noticed this as well because I had— in interviews just a few years ago, he's still telling this anecdote. And I think it makes sense for me in the '90s because I think if I'm kind of seeing Fabio as the spokesman of love and romance. Like, he is a kind of like, you know, K-pop idols where they have to pretend that they've never had a girlfriend and they don't. Like, it's like kind of important to his brand that he is perpetually single, perpetually available. Like, I think they've even kind of like lampooned— like some journalists have like lampooned him for this tendency, I suppose. But keeping it up for so long like that, I found that to be so strange.
Michael
Well, now you're getting me to my theory.
Sawyer
Okay, what's your theory?
Michael
My new theory, which I've developed this morning or last night. I'm working on the next episode of my podcast, which is about Vanilla Ice. I should have done that episode back over the 4th of July, and I wanted to, but I unfortunately had back surgery. And so I'm deciding to do it anyway because it's so interesting.
Sawyer
Mm-hmm.
Michael
There is a lot of overlap between Fabio and Vanilla Ice. Same time period.
Sawyer
Uh-huh.
Michael
And what I'm observing is that— I don't want to put this— some people could put this in a negative, and I don't want to do that.
Sawyer
Okay.
Michael
I want to say that there may be— our society may need certain people to hold on to the behaviors of childhood. Or adolescence or early adulthood and not advance beyond that. And I'm going to say men and women. And I might say Vanilla Ice and Fabio may be examples of that. And maybe Madonna might be a little bit of an example of that or somebody. This is a theory in the making, so it could be shot down pretty easily. But I just want to point out that when Fabio went to first of all, he did lie to me about his age. So he was 2 years older than he said he was.
Sawyer
Which, like, why? Because he was 34, and he said he was 32.
Michael
Yeah. I don't know if Peter Paul wanted that, or if maybe he lied about his age when he started modeling so that they would think he was younger. Anyway.
Sawyer
Oh, that's a good point.
Michael
But when he first got to LA, he moved in with his friend Richard Franklin, who had a famous 6,500-foot bachelor pad. He was a photographer, and his photos were often of women in very extreme positions and with extreme lighting. And it was really pretty cool that he did these photos without any special effects. He just did it through lighting, which really was a talent. But these photos were very much a teenage boy's fantasy. And the house was a teenage boy's fantasy. It had a grotto and a waterfall and all kinds of rooms for hijinks. And it was famous in LA. And Fabio moves into that. Okay? Later on, I don't know how recently, or I don't know if it's still current, but he says he has 31 sports cars, 300 dirt bikes. He collects sports cars. Dirt bikes. You know, he's— and he's not that much younger than I am.
Sawyer
Have you seen that video of him showing off his dirt bikes?
Michael
I did get a glance at it. Yeah.
Sawyer
It's kind of unreal because he can't— they're packed in so tightly, he can't move them.
Michael
Yeah. And just everything, you know, I don't know about now, but when I met him, he had 3 giant Great Danes. One was Apache, who was 175 pounds
Sawyer
Mm-hmm.
Michael
Thor and Geronimo. He, you know, that's a, that's a, you know, what a— it's all part of this guy between 16 and 25 fantasy kind of world. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. You know, that's what every kind of single guy, and, you know, you'd want these big Great Danes. And then, and then the cheating on it, the, the not getting tied down to one woman, because you get tied down to one woman, you get married, you grow up, you have to take care of kids, you can't think about your dirt bikes, So I am feeling— and so with Vanilla Ice, Vanilla Ice did get married. He's— I think he's single now, but he did get married. And they're not exactly identical, but the same thing. He's racing. Racing jet skis was a big thing for him. He did motocross when he was younger. He has all these cars that he shows off, fancy cars, like Fabio. And I feel like— To put it positively, we want to have these people who represent this time of youth for us, and we don't want them to move beyond it. So you can't have a girlfriend for more than 4 years.
Sawyer
Yeah, that's— I see what you're saying. And then this kind of is like another thing that you touched on in your podcast episode with Sarah is how often there is inneundo.
Michael
Yeah.
Sawyer
But at the same time, his public persona is very sexless. Fabio, he seems to find the discussion of sex tedious, and he's like trying to conjure this image for his brand of this courtly romantic love. Like he's a gentleman. Like he says, I'm a gentleman, over and over and over again. And then after he stops modeling for romance covers, which by 1993 he had pretty much stopped with the exception of his own books, There's almost like no carnality at all in his public image. I would say it kind of becomes more camp than anything else, like especially when you get into the commercials of the I Can't Believe It's Not Butter. And it seems like you found the way that people spoke around Fabio at odds with how he and Peter Paul were hyping himself up. Is that fair to say?
Michael
Yes, but I don't think that— I think that was intentional. Like, I think they encouraged it. And it's like people felt free around Fabio to talk about, like, once again, kind of like 16-year-old behavior when Sally Kirkland is rubbing her legs and going, oh my God, I'm having an orgasm, you know, because I'm near Fabio. You know, and Sally Kirkland was an actress at the time. And she also offered me a type of sexual favor, which I did not accept.
Sawyer
She offered?
Michael
She offered that for—
Sawyer
sorry to interrupt. She offered that for you writing about her?
Michael
Yes. Yes. If I would put her name in the magazine.
Sawyer
Oh my goodness.
Michael
But, you know, she was kidding around and I was laughing. It was funny. But it's— he— they freed people up to do this. And once again, you know, teenagers talking about sex, is a lot less scary than actually, you know, the people who move on and they're having a lot of sex. I mean, that's not scary, but it's like, to a teenager, there's this sort of play-acting it out kind of thing. And they brought that out in just about everybody.
Sawyer
Mm-hmm.
Michael
And also, I would say that it is clear that they brought a lot of joy to a lot of people. And whatever else happened, the people I met at the romance novel conference, they just had such a good time. They were having a great time. They loved meeting him. It was so exciting to meet him for them. And this is good. This is good. People enjoying themselves and enjoying him and feeling good about themselves. You know, Tina Jakes, who was a co-editor of The Gentle Conqueror, His newsletter, told me how she lost weight when she met him, and she just loved talking to him. But once again, this is part of my theory is that he had women like Tina, who's a really nice person. I loved her. And he had a friend, Amy Kopatkin, who was a veterinarian, and he had completely platonic relationships with them, but he pursued it. He talked to them for Hours, hours and hours. And I think at one point, it wasn't Tina, I don't think, it was somebody else who was like—
Sawyer
Was it Ellen Wolf?
Michael
Ellen Wolf, maybe, who said, I just had to cut it off because I didn't have anything more to say.
Sawyer
Yeah, I really liked the clips that you played of Tina Jakes on your episode. And yeah, it seemed like you found them both very sincere and endearing.
Michael
Yes, and really, really, really nice. And they— I think that— I'm pretty sure they had a great time and it enhanced their life. So I think that's a wonderful side of this. And just pushing my theory, I'm a regular Peter Paul pushing my idea, is that looking back at his past, Fabio's past life, he— one of the things he most— because sometimes he was really bored talking to me. Like, he was— I could tell he was just like, yeah, this is what I have to say. But sometimes he got animated. And when he talked about the terrible ski accident he had when he was a teenager and skiing kind of recklessly. I mean, he talked about that for like 30 minutes maybe. Oh my goodness. So, you know, his excitement about— or putting the whoopee cushion under the priest's seat in church. These are things that he was excited about, and I don't want to say that's negative. I want to say that a person who can hold on to the joy of these things. This is my theory, that we need some people, prominent people, like we make them prominent because they are holding onto the joy of these things, which we want to hold onto also while we go on to all the difficulties of adult life.
Sawyer
Yeah. I think one thing for me, when people ask him about romance novels, I do really like what he has to say usually. He does talk about fantasy. And I think that a lot of times when people talk about romance, they kind of talk about it as the only way that people will ever read romance novels is— where they're usually talking about women— is that so they can imagine their perfect ideal life, which is a little bit reductive. But Fabio doesn't really say that. He's talking— he talks about how it's like a safe— like books are a safe place to explore ideas. On the social internet in 2026, this is actually a little bit more radical than a lot of other people.
Michael
Yeah.
Sawyer
Like, I don't want to say that, like, Fabio— I mean, if you're a listener of Reformed Rakes, you probably know what Fabio is now and that he's not a progressive person by any stretch of the imagination. But I think one thing that I do think is very sincere about him is that I do think he like seems to hold like, when he got into that argument with George Clooney, like, he was so affronted that George Clooney could potentially treat a fan negatively.
Michael
Yeah.
Sawyer
He's like, it's easy to be famous. To be fair to George Clooney, George Clooney is a different level of famous than Fabio, but, like, but he, he was just, he took that so personally. Fabio sees fame as his job. He sees it as easy. He sees it as something that he's lucky to do. Which, I mean, actually, no, now that I said sees it as easy, I'm kind of remembering now your profile.
Michael
Yeah, he always said, oh, oh, I'm so tired, so tired. This is a guy who handed over his life to Peter Paul, right? I mean, and for a while. And then they had a falling out, which of course I heard about when I was listening to a radio talk show and heard them yelling at each other. And Peter Paul was saying to Fabio, Who got you Michael Small? Who got you People magazine? I was like, what? Am I dreaming? I heard that on a talk show back when I, you know, many years ago. I don't exactly know when. So Fabio did kind of hand his life over to Peter Paul. And I'm thinking that Donald Trump was really nice to Fabio.
Sawyer
Oh, sure.
Michael
And Donald Trump can be nice to people close up, right? And that Fabio started watching Fox News. And Donald Trump was nice to him and he just bought into the whole thing.
Sawyer
I think that he— I think this is like a yay for me, not for thee kind of thing that conservative people kind of have. Well, because like, I guess an example is Fabio is an immigrant. I know that he says it's different because he came to America like the quote unquote right way. But if you think about how Fabio came to America, like how feasible is that for everybody? So he— what he— he had $3,000, which is actually kind of a lot of money, or like a decent amount of money. Like, I think in, um, in the late '70s, he had $3,000. He had a place to stay in New York. Uh, he says that he got a job immediately at Ford Models.
Michael
Yeah.
Sawyer
So I just— it— he just— so he—
Michael
And he could not— he could not fail because his father said, I won't support you if you do this. But come on, their family was very loving. And if he had said, Dad, I'm starving. His father would've said, come home and work in the business. But he had a total fallback position. Yeah.
Sawyer
It's just like he doesn't— he's not able to muster up empathy for people who have a different position than him. Like, he's not able to realize, like, how made he had it. And I think that— which is like a strange kind of dichotomy, because I think Fabio, when he talks about himself, there's a lot of self-mythologizing. It was kind of hard for me when I was looking into him to find out what is true and what isn't if he's the only source on something.
Michael
Yeah.
Sawyer
And it's like, and the only reason I knew not to trust him besides the fact that he just kind of sounds like he's lying sometimes is that I would kind of, I would kind of catch him in a lie. He was on, I think this podcast, The Inspiration Experience, and he was, he talked, he said an insane number about how much money he made for a cover, like something like $100,000 for being on a romance novel cover. And I'm like, why would you say that? There's absolutely no way. No way. Because I know that you got paid $100,000 for 3 books to be ghostwritten. They're not going to pay you $100,000 to model on one cover. That's 1 hour of work.
Michael
Okay, now here's another little thing that maybe you can correct or whatever, because he told me when I looked at my notes, he said to me, I speak it in Italian into a tape recorder and then a romance novelist translates it into English.
Sawyer
I don't believe that. I think that he—
Michael
But so like, you know, wow, an outright lie.
Sawyer
I mean, I can't say for sure that he's lying, but I don't— I don't— I never saw on Eugenia Riley's website that she speaks Italian. So I— because she's Eugenia Riley, his ghostwriter for those books. Like, she was already a romance novelist. Like, she wrote time travel, contemporary, like all sorts of stuff. I'm sure that he probably gave her the outline of what he wanted to happen, but I— the, like, you know, as a writer, you know that writing it is the thing.
Michael
Yes, yes.
Sawyer
So, so yeah. And I think that maybe too, it's something that you kind of talked to Sarah about, like maybe him— well, you didn't say this specifically, but like you talked about like the animosity that romance authors were having for Fabio because of his book contract. So it's possible that he wanted to overstate his contribution in order to— because, like, I think— because part of it was Peter Paul is going around saying that, like, Fabio is getting the biggest advance that any romance novelist has ever gotten. And so romance novelists are like, well, we know our colleague wrote this book. Like, we— Like, we know that he's not writing it. And then you've got Liz Pearl from Avon who's going around baldly saying, like, Kind of, yeah, we're not really expecting it to be good. Like, people are going to buy it anyway. So I can see why that would kind of, I don't know, it's kind of crazy.
Michael
It's also interesting that several of the things that they were selling didn't happen. They said, or when I say selling, when they were pitching, Peter Paul said there would be a Fabio fantasy mansion in Branson, Missouri on 420 acres of land that he was acquiring. It was going to be called the Honeymoon Hotel, and Fabio would occasionally perform there— perform, I guess, from his CD, his music. And then they would have— it would be a place where people could go and be romantic. And of course, that never happened. He was supposed to have an acting career along the lines of Errol Flynn as an action hero, maybe starring as— he always wanted to be— what was it?
Sawyer
Jean-Claude Van Damme, maybe?
Michael
Yeah. Well, he always wanted to play one of the Marvel characters.
Sawyer
Oh, Thor.
Michael
Thor, exactly. It's Thor. It's Thor, probably.
Sawyer
He wanted to play Thor.
Michael
That didn't happen. And he did, from my notes, he studied acting with a big acting teacher, Mervyn Nelson, at Stella Adler in 1988. He was taking 2 classes a week. He had an acting coach, Jared Barkley, who also was coach to Liza Minnelli, Johnny Depp, Patrick Swayze, Josh Brolin, Lily Tomlin.
And he has always, as far as I know, when he's in movies, he has the same role, which is called himself.
Sawyer
Well, he did play the Pope in Sharknado 5.
Michael
Oh, okay.
Sawyer
But like, which was also Fabio as the Pope. But, but okay, that's so funny to me because all of this— I guess there is something to be said about talent. Like, the— all of the— all of these resources cannot make Fabio a passable actor. Like, he just can't. I saw that you had a script, like a page of Acapulco Heat with 2 of his lines.
Michael
Yes.
Sawyer
He plays, um, the billionaire Puerto Vallarta hotel owner named Claudio. And I, when I looked at that page, I was laughing because I've watched a few episodes of Acapulco Heat, and I bet that page that you have is all of his lines for the whole episode because he's barely in it.
Michael
Wow. Wow. They made such a big deal out of that.
Sawyer
He is really like, he does get the best part in the theme song. Which is like he's got a giant phone, but he's almost nonexistent. Basically a running joke that he— that one of the actual main characters is jealous of Fabio. But anyways, the show is actually quite entertaining. But yeah, I'm not gonna say it's good.
Michael
Yeah. Okay. Well, that good and entertaining don't always match up, but there's another thing was that they were supposedly going to make 27,000 Fabio watches. And I, I looked on the interwebs and I could not find Fabio watches.
Sawyer
I would have bought one if there—
Michael
And supposedly they printed 100,000 copies of the book that I ghostwrote, which would certainly make it by far the biggest project of my lifetime, but 100,000 copies of that? I don't know.
Sawyer
Where did— yeah, where did it go?
Michael
Well, I've got 5.
Sawyer
I've got 1.
Michael
Oh wow, lucky you.
Sawyer
No, it is, it was, it's incredibly useful. You, you did a very good thing here. I wanted to, um, I wanted to talk about one. I don't know if I have a question about this, but I did want to talk about kind of, we were talking about products and I found this one part of your podcast, like extremely charming is where you play this interview where you're telling Fabio that your honest opinion on his record, Fabio After Dark, is that it's kind of hokey. And then both Fabio and Peter Paul just kind of start giggling. And they're like, and they're talking. And then Fabio says, listen, you think when you are in love, you're the regular Michael? And then they're saying, no, you act silly. Like you call the girls funny names like boo-boo and sweetie.
Michael
Yeah.
Sawyer
And that you sound like an idiot when you're in love. And that was so funny to me. I guess my, my counter to that is that when you're in love, there's a specificity that Does not come from Fabio After Dark. That is kind of funny.
Michael
No, no, no.
Sawyer
Because like, because like, if I remember, he has like a song where he's just talking about his perfect date and it's just kind of going back to your like, this is what a teenager thinks. It's like, we're going to go to a movie. I'm going to bring her roses.
Michael
Yeah. Well, you know, I also want to bring up how fun it is for me to go back to these things and have time. Right? To do— because I wrote that whole story and I'd never read a romance novel, you know? And so I just read Gentle Rogue, which has Fabio on the COVID I found it at the library. And one of the things I think I mentioned to you before was that Peter Paul said people imagine Fabio, like readers imagine Fabio as they're reading the book.
Sawyer
Yeah.
Michael
I could not imagine Fabio as I was reading that book because the The lead character, for one thing, he's kind of clever and witty and quick. And not to say that, I mean, Fabio's got his charm, you know, definitely he's charming, but he's not, you know, like a, you know, he's—
Sawyer
He doesn't have zingers. Like, yeah.
Michael
Yeah. I found it was a really interesting thing to read I guess I want to ask you a question. Do you think that I thought, wow, this is total crap? Or do you think I thought, this is so great, I can't believe it's so entertaining? Or do you think I thought something in between?
Sawyer
For a Joanna Lindsey book?
Michael
Yeah.
Sawyer
I would say something in between.
Michael
Exactly.
Sawyer
Yeah.
Michael
But I did not feel like, you know, like I felt like I could never write a book. I could never do what she did. I couldn't accomplish this. This is— she has a real— she had a real talent, and I can see why people want to read it. I was— the surprising things for me— can you guess what surprised me?
Sawyer
Well, it's a Joanna Lindsey book, so I feel like it could be literally anything. She's a bit of a wild card.
Michael
Oh, okay.
Sawyer
What surprised you?
Michael
Soft porn. I mean, like, she could feel him thick and hard pressing into the heat so tight, filling her thrilling her. I did not expect that.
Sawyer
You didn't?
Michael
No.
Sawyer
I thought— I felt like romance has a reputation for being soft porn.
Michael
I have to think about this. Like, it's like you have to go through a lot of pages to get to that. And, you know, I think with men in porn— she even mentions male porn in the book, I think. But with men in porn, it's pretty immediate. You open it up and there it is. And this is like, you go through 150 pages and there it is. I don't know. I just, I was surprised. I didn't expect it to be like that. And then she did, really did research into ships and it was, it took place in the 18— early 1800s. And she, you know, there was stuff about gunwales and deck housings and, and, you know, other ship lingo. But then as soon as they had sex, she forgot all about that they were on a ship. Like you never get anything like they, the boat Pulled into the dock. Like, there's no, there's no, they hit a wave and they were, it's just, that's completely forgotten once they have sex. You don't even know they're on a ship anymore.
Sawyer
Wait, that's really funny.
Michael
And, and yeah, I just, I don't want to go on too much, but like also surprising that the lead female character is pretty nasty. She, she is, she has a negative comment about everything and yet he loves her because she's nasty and doesn't you know, fawn all over him or something. That's the dream. Or she's really good at sex or something. I don't know. But like, he gives up his whole life and he said he would never marry. And then he marries this— she— I don't think she says one nice thing in the whole book. Is that normal?
Sawyer
Not anymore. I think like the kind of collective tolerance for bad behavior in romance novels has really decreased. Like, but in the '80s, '90s, '70s, like Yeah, they'd be so nasty, sometimes really annoying, sometimes straight-up evil. And I think that's kind of what's entertaining about it. And Joanna Lindsey, she has a reputation for being, I guess what people would call, a little bit banana pants. Her books seem to be a little off the wall. We just did an episode of hers on Warrior's Woman, which is another Fabio cover And this one was like, it's like set on a futuristic planet where it's like almost kind of like a Barbarella type situation where like this woman from this dystopian future where they heavily control how you have sex and how your, what your gender relations are. She goes to this planet with these He-Man hair pullers. And then Fabio's character, well, it's not Fabio's character, but the character he's modeling for is the He-Man hair puller. Something that I thought was very funny is there's this episode of Maury before Fabio got famous and Ellen Wolf was on, because it was mostly about Ellen Wolf and her husband Scott, who I think you've talked to.
And she was— she won a contest—
Michael
Right, right.
Sawyer
To speak with Fabio from his hotline. And in the episode of Maury, they bring her and her husband Scott on, and they're basically like interrogating their marriage. Like, why do you read romance novels? Are you so unhappy with your pathetic life? The questions are so hostile to this poor couple who seem incredibly charming. But one thing Ellen says that just cracks me up every time is, I was reading Warrior's Woman, and she was like, Fabio's perfect for this character. And it's just like a literal Cro-Magnon-like—
Michael
Cro-Magnon.
Sawyer
Which, that's not really how she meant it. I know that that's not what she meant, but it does make me laugh a little bit because when you're just like, oh, this witty guy doesn't remind me of Fabio.
Michael
I started reading another one that was where an android— she's working out with an android at the beginning and then her boyfriend comes in. But I didn't go with that one. What was that one?
Sawyer
I think it was Keeper of the Heart. I think that's the sequel to Warrior's Woman.
Michael
Oh, okay. So, so I just thought, I don't want to read about the future. Um, but I noticed that both of them had a million characters introduced and places in like the first 3 pages. Is that typical of romance novels that you meet a lot of people quickly or you learn about the reference to them?
Sawyer
It can be. I guess it just kind of depends. Like, I think probably in older ones is probably more common, but sometimes they're doing this thing. in romance novels where they're setting up the whole world for a series. So like each book in a series will be like a standalone couple, but they're gonna introduce you to everybody in the first book.
Michael
Oh, okay.
Sawyer
I don't know if that's necessarily what Joanna Lindsey was doing, but she also might— for at least for Keeper of the Heart, like she might have been like, well, here are all those characters you met in the last book and they're doing their fun little cameo bits.
Michael
That makes sense.
Sawyer
And this next one, they're supposed to read as standalones, but can sometimes be a lot of like info dumping depending on like how skilled the author is.
Michael
And what about the thing with the aristocracy? Is one of the lovers always an aristocrat?
Sawyer
Almost always in a historical, yeah. That's—
Michael
Because, you know, it's interesting. I think in the history of the novel, what was— the novel was originally was the, the one of the breakthrough things is that Robinson Crusoe is not an aristocrat, you know. And it's interesting that this genre has gone back to— I think that in plays before the novel came along, and in operas and stuff like that, that they were often about aristocrats.
Sawyer
Mm-hmm.
Michael
And that the novel was supposed to, like, you know, bring it down. We're going to read about Charles Dickens and Balzac writing about normal people.
Sawyer
Mm-hmm.
Michael
And it's so interesting that this sort of— I felt like this book sort of idealized the aristocracy. They were open to having an American plebeian into their family. And, you know.
Sawyer
Yeah. I wish my podcast co-host Emma was here because she would say something smarter because she's thought a lot about this. But I think like for romance publishing, it almost feels like the publishers themselves are very prescriptive about who and what you can write about. So for example, it's not just the aristocracy. Like, it's specifically dukes are so overrepresented in historical romance. And so publishers are telling us that like, well, dukes are what sells, so we're only gonna do what sells.
Michael
Uh-huh.
Sawyer
But you're not taking any other kind of— if you're not taking all other kinds of books or like trying to take risks or something, like you're, you're— it's, you know, there's the trends come and go, things change. So I don't necessarily think that duke are always going to be like consistently popular, but yet they kind of are running with that mindset that readers, readers are the ones that are demanding this. Like they refuse to read. And then you have readers on social media, on the other hand, being like, please just give me like someone who owns an inn or something.
Michael
Oh, okay.
Sawyer
I think like, yeah, it's like this weird— because there are a lot of authors who write historical romance who I think like Carla Kelly is like a really good example. Like, she, she does like a lot of Waterloo stuff, like where they might be like war veterans, but they'll often be very poor, sometimes disabled. Cecelia Grant is another one who has like, like they're, they're, they're, they're there, they exist. But yeah, it's kind of increasingly difficult because like even now historical romance— oh, this is getting into a big thing, but there's basically a lot of discussion around like nobody likes historical romance anymore. Like it's not popular. And so because of that, they're getting even more risk-averse to try new things. So yeah, it's kind of strange. But yeah, that's funny that you mentioned that and you noticed that. I think that's like a big constant conversation that romance readers are having. Like, some are like, well, I like dukes, I like my fantasy, I want the rich people. This is no different than like billionaire romance. And then there are people on the other end of the spectrum just like, please, can we not lionize—
Michael
Yeah.
Sawyer
The baddies.
Michael
Yeah, right. And along those lines, this is my last thing, and you can blame Fabio for getting me to look into all this. But is there a little bit of tacit approval for roguish behavior in men? Because in the book I read, all the men were sleeping around and everybody was like, yep, they sleep around. Yep, they get drunk. Yep. And then they— well, I guess it's Reformed Rakes. Then they get reformed and they get married. But I just wondered whether there was sort of like, Yeah, that's funny. That's fun. That's, you know, like they're, you know, guys can do that. Girls can't.
Sawyer
Yeah, I have, I have a couple of different minds about this because I think that one of the things that stresses me out about romance and romance criticism is that there's always the feminism question. Like, no matter what is happening, it has to be like, is it feminist? Is it not? And so authors can kind of tend to like maybe downplay their stories or not write interesting or risky or strange characters because they don't want you to think that their characters are bad people.
Michael
Mm-hmm.
Sawyer
And then there are also like, I, I mean, there, there are sometimes— I, I think Joanna Lindsey does do this where she might sometimes write someone who's just like unbearable to be around and you're kind of wondering, okay, why would anybody want to read this for an adventure story or for fun, because it's not even the question of like— think like if you look into newspaper coverage of romance readers, because a lot of times when they talk about romance readers, they're talking about what are readers learning from these novels? Like, how are they learning about how they want to be treated or how men should treat them? To me, I feel like it's kind of ignoring the text in favor of what they think that the readers are getting out of it.
Michael
Hmm.
Sawyer
But I guess kind of to speak more to the endorsement of bad behavior specifically, I guess it just kind of depends on the author. Some authors like Joanna Lindsey loves people doing bad things. She's really— she really loves that. There are other authors like I would say Mary Balogh might like have like less of a taste for that. And then if you had picked up Flowers from the Storm by Laura Kinsale, who's like another— she was another one of the big authors that Fabio was on the cover for, and he's on this one specifically. I think that you would find that there's a really more skeptical view of the aristocracy, even though the main character is a duke, and some very bad behavior and some like really like a lot of moral grayness. And I guess to say is that it just, it's just kind of so complex. People are doing like different things in every different book.
Michael
Mm-hmm.
Sawyer
People have like different tastes and opinions, and it can get And it can get pretty wide and broad.
Michael
Well, you know, bring it back to Fabio, which is like perfect. And I hadn't thought of this until I heard you talking just now. I mean, a little bit, think about his life, right? He— I think the assumption is he's with a lot of women. The assumption is that he has this high ideal of the perfect woman, which is like these dukes, you know, they, they actually want— I haven't found the right woman, right? So I'm, I'm with all these other women in the meantime, and I'm having fun, and I'm Fabio doesn't get drunk, but you know, like, so I think there's an assumption that Fabio is, I think it's an accepted assumption that he has been with a lot of women. And it's certainly what I picked up from spending some time with him. And that he can't, you know, like the characters in the book I read, they were getting older. He was, the guy was in his 40s or 50s or something, right? I think the main character, because he just couldn't find the right woman and He said he would never settle down and never marry. And that kind of matches up with Fabio.
So he's living—
Sawyer
He's living his romance life.
Michael
Yeah.
Sawyer
I mean, I guess I could see what you're saying. I guess one thing, because I was just talking about feminism and when I had this point in here, this question, because I read a few quotes and I wanted to know how you went about getting them. Because did you call Gloria Allred and Camille Paglia to get quotes on Fabio? How did that happen?
Michael
You know, I saw them. I saw that in my notes. I think I called them. Yeah.
Sawyer
Yeah. Okay.
Michael
Yeah.
Sawyer
What about—
Michael
I'd call anybody back then. Yeah.
Sawyer
You— I mean, you had so many people in there that you, you talked to, but it seems like a lot of them were at that one party.
Michael
No, right. A lot of them were at that party that I quoted there, but I actually saw notes. I wish I had them in front of me. I think my editor said you need to get a different type of person to comment. And so I called Camille Paglia and Gloria Allred, and— or I wrote— I left a message and they faxed me a comment. That could have been it too, you know, because we didn't have email. I don't think we had email back then. Yeah. Oh wait, we did have email, but we didn't have— I think the internet didn't work. The internet didn't work. I think we had email, maybe. Anyway, they sent me— I used faxes a lot back then. I could see in my notes that I saved, there were all these faxes. I was faxing people, take a look at this. So, and we had special ways to communicate back with the office where I could send a file in over some sort of weird system. So yes, I did, I did reach out to them.
Sawyer
Okay. And they were both very complimentary. Um, had they, had either of them met him before or are they kind of just commenting on like what they're seeing in the media?
Michael
Commenting on what they're seeing in the media.
Sawyer
Yeah.
Michael
Okay.
Sawyer
Interesting. So for Fabio's biography, I guess for the listeners who haven't, haven't seen it, it's kind of— it looks kind of like— it almost looks kind of like a magazine because it's like a— it's like big and it's got the kind of glossy, but it's, it's, it's, it's more durable. And it starts with how Peter Paul met Fabio, and then it goes back to Fabio's early modeling career, walks through his romance modeling career. Then the bulk of the book is kind of He gets a lot of single pages about different Fabio products. You've got a few different ones for the calendars, you've got the fitness tape, you've got the hotline. So this was a godsend to me. Lots of really useful information in there, and then photos that I definitely needed to see. And it's also a really good indicator of Fabio's height because you have a lot of pictures of Fabio standing next to people. Fabio is 6'3 and he towers over everyone except for Muhammad Ali and Howard Stern, who are 6'3. And 6'5 respectively.
Michael
Wow.
Sawyer
But yeah, am I allowed to ask, like, what kind of— what instructions did you get? Is it just— did you just have like a really long interview with Peter, or was it— were you told like, these are kind of the beats that you need to hit?
Michael
Oh God, I think they gave me— I don't know why. They just trusted me.
Sawyer
Really?
Michael
So, and I was very I was very thorough, so I was going to go every direction I could go. The one request that I got was to call a couple people who were leaning more towards feminism and to get their— and it's weird, I remember saying there's somebody that it did not go into, the quote did not go into the book. Well, okay, so I got those quotes for the article and didn't use them. I got quotes from those from some of those people for the article. When we were talking about the book, Peter Paul sent me a lot of materials. Like, he had solicited quotes from everybody. Part of his genius was that he had gone out and whenever he met anybody or he wrote to people and he asked for quotes— while I was in his office, like, you know, some celebrity person called. I heard they were like, so-and-so's office is on the phone. And then he turned them down so he could keep talking to me. So he reached out and he sent me all these quotes and things. And I believe I proposed an outline for the book saying, this is how I think you should put it together, because we didn't have a lot.
So I was like, this is how I think it should be put together. And then he sent me— so he did send me a lot of materials when we're talking about that. I did though go to— I got confused because for the article I was asked to go to a couple of feminist writers. to see what they had to say. And I remember one of them was pretty, uh, you know, she wasn't as enthusiastic as the ones that went in the book.
Sawyer
Do you remember who she was?
Michael
I could tell you later, but I don't have it in front of me.
Sawyer
Gotcha. No worries.
Why did Peter Paul want his name to be on the cover.
Michael
That's interesting. You know, I, I can't, I can't get into his mind except to say maybe he wanted some credit for everything he'd done. And he didn't want the same writer from the People magazine article, which is possible. Did you notice the credits that I thought were interesting when I looked at it again today? He thanked his mother Arlene and his son Parker. He'd never mentioned his son to me. And then he said, and partner Lou Marino. And I don't know who Lou Marino is, but I never heard discussion about him. Um, uh, there also was a quote that sent me from, from, um, this is a little bit interesting, from— see if I can find it here— Eric Aschenberg.
Sawyer
Eric Aschenberg.
Michael
And he gave a special credit to Eric Aschenberg, and then there was a quote from Eric Aschenberg. And what's interesting is that Eric Aschenberg was affiliated with Fabio before Peter Paul came along, and after Peter Paul and Fabio split, Eric Aschenberg has been his, his manager. And as recently as, like, looking at, like, 2022, Eric Aschenberg's name still appearing. So Eric Aschenberg preceded and followed Peter Paul, who swooped in and made a lot of money for everybody. So he gave a big thank you in the credits to Eric Aschenberg, which is interesting, because he sort of superseded Eric Aschenberg. And then Eric Aschenberg came back again.
Sawyer
Yeah, yeah. He's— yeah, I think he's— I remember Fabio saying something. I have no idea what happened between him and Peter Paul, but I, I know that Fabio has said something about like he hired Erik Aschenberg because he was tired of all these crooks. And I'm like, what?
Michael
What did—
Sawyer
did he find out something, or some sort of heated disagreement?
Michael
I told you about— I was driving and I heard that, uh, talk show where they were yelling at each other, and I didn't think to— well, I couldn't have recorded it, and I didn't think to Hmm. Even note what I was listening to because I was just flipping through the dial. That was the creepiest, scariest part. I flipped through the dial and I'd find someone referring to me. And so it became a big story in my life. I was flipping through the dial and these people are talking about me. But, um, but I, I'm nervous because I might have misremembered. But so I don't— and I have a quote in my head of what I think Fabio said, but I don't want to say it because what if I got it wrong? And I don't want You know, but what I would say is it seemed to be a disagreement based on financial details.
Sawyer
Yeah, I feel like if you were going to get into it with Peter Paul, it would probably be because of financials. One of the two.
Michael
And I definitely don't want to get into anything. He's probably 80 years old now, but, um, I just want to look back and positively remember his skills.
Sawyer
Yeah, I mean, he pretty tireless in suing Hillary Clinton, so I think he was doing that for a very long time. So don't come for me, Peter Paul. Okay, awesome. Well, this has been so, so amazing and so informative. I guess one thing kind of to talk about— well, something that's so interesting is so much of your time with Fabio is right as he's like kind of cresting off into being like super, super mega famous. And then after your People magazine article comes out, he gets huge, like enormous, because of, because of these commercials basically, which like literally everybody is seeing. Were you surprised by how big he got?
Michael
Nah. I, I, once again, I had faith in Peter Paul and in Fabio too. You know, they, they had figured something out. But also he did pretty soon become sort of a joke. And he was in on the joke. He said to me, you got to be able to laugh at yourself.
Sawyer
Yes.
Michael
So I, you know, and I'm going to go back to my theory that we'd like to have these people who represent the rake before he's reformed.
Sawyer
Awesome. And, and Michael, where can folks find you, uh, in the future? Obviously you've got your podcast. Is there anything else you wanted to share on here?
Michael
Well, when you—
Sawyer
About what's coming up.
Michael
Give me a chance. Give me an inch, I'll take a mile. Uh, so the podcast is at throwitoutpodcast.com, and it's also wherever you get podcasts. I couldn't throw it out, and I'm sorry for the lag when I was having back troubles, but I'm getting back to it with Vanilla Ice, so he'll be next. This is just— I've written a musical that we are trying to get, uh, in, produced in one way or another, and I'm— and I have this amazing director, Greg Edelman, who is a big Broadway actor who's been nominated for a Tony 4 times. And we've recorded all the songs. And if anybody's interested in that, it is— the musical is called The History of Light, and you can hear all the songs recorded by some Tony winners like Bonnie Milligan at historyoflightmusical.com. And of course, I am going to now check and make sure that I gave you the right— yes. historyoflightmusical.com. And the musical is unusual in that it takes place in 1886, and I was doing research, and it was going to be a play, and I kept coming across Gilbert and Sullivan, who I never liked. I always hated their music, but I kept coming across and coming across it.
So anyway, ultimately I ended up taking Gilbert and Sullivan songs and updating them as hip-hop and pop, and those are the songs in my musical.
Sawyer
Amazing. And I will make sure we've got everything linked in, uh, the show notes. So y'all can check out all of Michael's work. Um, yeah, thank you again for being a guest. It was truly incredible, wonderful conversation. Uh, and I absolutely am looking forward to more episodes, looking forward to that Vanilla Ice episode. Um, so, um, and, uh, thank you for listening to Reformed Rakes. Uh, You can find us on Instagram. I usually have this written out. I'm just freestyling it now. You can find us on Instagram, uh, and X @reformedrakes, and you can email us at reformedrakes@gmail.com. We'd love to hear from our listeners. We also have a Patreon. It's patreon.com/reformedrakes where we have monthly bonus episodes. Uh, thank you so much and we'll see you next time.
Michael
Thank you. Thank you.
